About Erin Hemmings

About Erin Hemmings:

“ I have never seen anything like what Erin is doing. In 25 years of living and breathing kitchen tools, these are the most brilliant works of kitchen art in the world.”- Corey Milligan New West KnifeWorks owner.

Erin's creative fire and maker-mentality was first fueled by his father’s ability to create. Stories of his father’s unique projects and inventions captured Erin’s imagination as a kid and led him into a lifetime of dreaming, inventing and creating. Early on, Erin and his father formed a team with complimentary skills; one would dream up an idea, while the other worked to make it a reality. This was often a rich bed for creativity and resulted in many awesome collaborative projects: a 12 foot long redwood strip rocket that blasted to over 5000 feet and was featured in Forbes magazine; an ultralight carbon fiber pack canoe; a hollow wood and carbon standup paddle board; a working 8 foot tall mechanical thermometer so sensitive it could detect a persons’ body heat.

Each project demanded a completely new skill set. Thus, Erin became an expert in 3D digital drafting, and learned to machine with lathes and mills while apprenticing with an

internationally renowned baroque flute maker. He became skilled with blending composites and wood through his friendship with a wood boat designer/builder. Erin follows his interests and allows them to fuel his creative drive. Sometimes this manifests in the practical, like building his own house from the ground up. Other times the result is a more artistic expression of his mental capacity for complex projects.

Through many projects, both with his father and independently, Erin has acquired an ability do fine and varied work, and maintains the belief that anything that can be imagined can be materialized into reality. This confidence to create allows Erin to design and build using new concepts never before seen in kitchen accessories. His excitement for his present work stems from a desire to combine and use new materials:

"Each element has a set of qualities that can add to a design. When I use glass, I like to emphasize its weight by using thickness, with wood I highlight the grain or structure with cast metal. Mixing materials is exciting. Cast aluminum is poured at 1300 degrees - far hotter than the flash point of most woods - so when you see them fused into one form with a charred line between, it evokes thoughts of the process and of the extremes that were needed.

“I have a long list of designs I want to achieve. My latest is combining laminated glass, hardwoods and cut river stone.

"Again, I am attracted to the contrast of two extremes - something very old like water-sculpted stone, and the modern look of glass, wood, and metal."For me, knife block design is art with a purpose. It's important that I accomplish a certain precision of functionality."

DYK: Erin was once the Guinnes World Record holder for the longest frisbee toss ( 1,331 feeet in 2004)